Armillaria mellea, also known as Hazel mushroom, is a delicious food material and traditional herbal medicine in East Asia. Protoilludane sesquiterpenoid aromatic esters from A. mellea (PSAM) are the main active components with antibacterial and anticancer activities. This study explored the antidepressant-like activities of PSAM and its possible mechanisms of action using the open field test (OFT), tail suspension test (TST) and forced swimming test (FST) in mice for the first time. The results revealed that PSAM (1 mg/kg, i.p.) exhibited markedly antidepressant-like activity, which could be reversed by pretreatment with haloperidol (a non-selective D2 receptor antagonist), bicuculline (a competitive GABA antagonist), NMDA (an agonist at the glutamate site). Meanwhile, PSAM also effectively increased the hippocampus dopamine (DA) and γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and decreased the hippocampus glutamate (Glu) levels of mice, indicating that the antidepressant-like effect of PSAM might be mediated by the DAergic, GABAergic and Gluergic systems.
Keywords: Armillaria mellea; DAergic; GABAergic; Gluergic; antidepressant-like effect; open field test; tail suspension test.